Bob Estey
Well-Known Member
But if "evil" doesn't mean "pain," how do you reconcile yourself to the passage that says the Lord repented of the evil he was going to do?
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Proverbs 16
4 The LORD has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom.
BARNEY BRIGHT
Well-Known Member
God didn't create evil. He created intelligent beings both angels and humans with the ability to make free moral choices. One of these beings, an angel, chose to focus his mind on himself being worshiped until eventually he acted upon his thoughts, when he deceive Eve into believing that God was a liar and an unjust ruler who never ruled in the best interests of the beings he had created. This angel also deceived Eve into believing she could be a goddess and be like God in that she and Adam could rule over themselves better than God could rule over them.
So while it is true God created beings with the ability to make free moral choices, that doesn't mean God created beings that way for them to abuse that ability. God didn't create mankind for them to rule over themselves. By God commanding Adam not to eat from the forbidden tree, God was testing Adam for him to acknowledge because of the love Adam had for the true God that God and he alone was the only one who could rule over what he had created in such a way that was in the best interests of what he had created (good), or what wasn't in the best interests of what he had created (evil). God didn't want Adam and Eve to fail this test. God wanted both Adam and Eve to pass this test by abstaining from eating from the forbidden tree, doing that because of the love they had for the true God. They would be showing the love they had for the true God if they continued to abstain from eating from the forbidden tree and they would be exercising faith that God and he alone was the only one who could rule over what he had created in such a way that he alone was the only person who could rule over what he had created in a way that was in the best interests of what he had created or what wasn't in the best interest of what he had created. So God didn't create evil.
@Jack might be of the reformed faith.
They believe,God created evil and actually CAUSES all evil to happen, incl natural disasters, sickness, moral evil, murders, etc.
How this is reconciled with Jesus' revelation of a loving God is a mystery to me.
I already explained this to you.
You did not like my explanation.
You'll have to find a way to reconcile some passages in the OT with what the NT states.
Just remember that the word of God cannot contradict itself.
Also remember that the OT is INSPIRED by God...
He did not sit down at a computer and type it out.
Maybe we should know better what INSPIRED means?
BARNEY BRIGHT
Well-Known Member
By such people believing that way they are believing sin and death originated from God. You here so many people when it comes to their loved ones who have died because of some sickness or disease or from an accident saying that God called them home as though God caused them to get that sickness or disease or God caused that accident so that he could bring them home, ridiculous. Sin and death came into existence because an angel was focusing on himself, thinking he should be worshipped. Eventually he acted on what he was thinking and deceived Eve into believing that God was a liar and a unjust ruler and that she would become a goddess and she and Adam would be able to rule themselves in a more just way without God if she ate from the forbidden tree.
Bob Estey
Well-Known Member
The Lord is perfect, so when the Bible says he repented of evil, I don't know what else to believe but that he repented of pain he was going to cause. I don't believe he was planning to do something that would have broken one of his own commandments.
Is God like a human?
He does something and then repents of it?
He didn't know before hand what He was doing --- if it was good or bad?
You're right, God cannot break one of His own commandments.
But this has nothing to do with your other statement.
God not breaking one of His own commandments is what 2 Timothy 2:13 is referring to.
God remains faithful to Himself...He cannot be different than His character, He cannot break any of His own commandments.
2 Timothy 2:13
13If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
We may be faithless to God at times, but He is always faithful to Himself.
Sometimes in our walk with God, we come upon a question that gives us difficulty.
We always get an answer, it could take a day or a month or years, but eventually the answer does come to us.
If you're happy with your current belief system, then praise God for your knowledge of Him and be happy.
Bob Estey
Well-Known Member
And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people. Exodus 32:14 RSV
OK
This is not something that is soteriological in nature so I don't really feel the need to discuss it too much.
@GodsGrace Isaiah 48.10 says: "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction".
The Lord graciously sustains His people through trials and afflictions....
Agreed.
But evil means much more than pain - that is just one aspect of it.
The other poster believes that evil means pain.
Maybe he means that pain is evil...I'm not sure and can only go by what he writes.
God can use our pain to refine us.
He is not causing the pain, but using it.
If you believe God can do evil...then I'm worshipping a different God.
He might very well be, but all he did was quote one verse from Proverbs, so it's really hard to discern much from that.
They believe nothing of the sort. But He does cause the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike, as Jesus Himself said in Matthew 5:45. What you say here, that those of the Reformed tradition believe God "created evil and actually causes all evil to happen" is absolutely, categorically untrue, but only something wrongly foisted upon those of the Reformed tradition. Such would be to say God is the author of sin, and even to call good evil and evil good.
Well it can't, because it's untrue, and any Reformed person worth his/her salt would be quick to say so. The irony of this is that those who say what you're saying here inadvertently make God's love out to be far lesser than it really is.
Yes, He works all things ~ all things ~ together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Certainly, he can speak for himself, but I'm 100% confident that's absolutely not what Farouk believes.
Grace and peace to you.
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Hi Pinseeker,
We've been through this and we would be repeating.
I do want to say that it's rather difficult to discuss anything with the reformed because they don't all agree with each other.
It's a little bit like the Protestant faith. I'm really beginning to dislike all the disagreements between us. The CC may have some doctrine wrong, but at least when they gather they're in agreement. This must be why some Protestants are converting..some to the Orthodox faith and some to the Catholic faith.
Now, YOU can tell me that the reformed do not believe God causes evil.
John Calvin tells me something different.
I asked you to explain this last time around and I didn't get an explanation.
Would you care to do so now?
The entirety of paragraph 4, chapter 22, book 3 of The Institutes of John Calvin.
Where he answers the opposition of man to be held responsible for what God has ordained him to be or do.
The answer: God can do as He pleases.
Or
Book 3, Chapter 21, Paragraph 5
Which tells us that God predestined everything that should happen to every man.
If you send me to the WCF, please give a paragraph.
And if it does not agree with the above...then why not?
If they truly understand and believe along the same lines as the Reformers, they/we do not believe God causes evil. James speaks to this, saying, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire." To say that God causes evil is to say God tempts, and even that God Himself sins, which is absolutely untrue.
Ah, well if that is so, then it is because you misunderstand what John Calvin is telling you. :) I'm sure John Calvin was well aware of James 1:13-14, cited above.
If what you say here is sufficient (it seems so to me, and I assume in your mind it is), neither text cited insinuate in any way that God causes evil. In both cases, we should see this as man's inability not to sin and God's decree to allow man to sin in order to accomplish His purposes. As Paul says in Romans 8:28, "...we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose." I'm sure John Calvin was well aware of Romans 8... :)
Grace and peace to you.
Doesn't answer the question.
Jesus presents God as being love.
BEING love not only having love.
That does not reconcile with your belief system.
Is God also satan?
I believe in God of the Bible Who drowned all on Earth but 8 and burned Sodom alive "making them an example" as Jesus said.
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